Ethically, the delivery of combined anaesthesia and analgesia is mandatory for surgical procedures in even the most difficult situations, or underdeveloped countries of the world. In order to facilitate surgery, approximately 27 million anaesthetics are given each year in the USA and 8 million are given each year in the UK. A worldwide estimate of activity suggests that over 200 million anaesthetics are given each year globally. Volatile anaesthetic agents can not only provide full anaesthesia, but also sedation and some degree of analgesia. Other drugs for sedation and analgesia are often co-administered.
Simplification of the anaesthetic process would be of great benefit, in terms of both patient safety and expense to healthcare systems. Moreover, a simple and effective way to administer anaesthesia would mean that pre-hospital care or ambulatory medicine could include important procedures that a patient presently may find too uncomfortable to tolerate outside of an operating theatre. Additionally, it could also facilitate sedation of a badly injured person whilst they were transported, in some instances over hostile terrain, to a healthcare facility.
With this in mind we have developed a novel solution for the delivery of anaesthetic agents. The system that we have developed is:                a. simple,        b. inexpensive,        c. less labour intensive (as less checking is required);        d. safe for patients, with less things to go wrong.        
In particular we have devised a system that is compatible with human or veterinary use, is of low volume (thus reducing bulk to enable safe anaesthesia), is physically stable during storage, functions rapidly and the anaesthetic is completely volatilized for patient safety.